We used to think some jobs were safe from automation. Though machines have transformed industries like agriculture and manufacturing, the conventional wisdom was that they could never perform what's called "knowledge work." That the robots could never replace lawyers or accountants — or journalists, like us. Well, ever since the release of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, it feels like no job is safe. AI can now write essays, generate computer code, and even pass the bar exam. Will work ever be the same again? Here at Planet Money, we are launching a new three-part series to understand what this new AI-powered future looks like. Our goal: to get the machines to make an entire Planet Money show. In this first episode, we try to teach the AI how to write a script for us from scratch. Can the AI do research for us, interview our sources, and then stitch everything together in a creative, entertaining way? We're going to find out just how much of our own jobs we can automate — and what work might soon look like for us all. (And, in case you're wondering... this text was not written by an AI.) This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Keith Romer. Maggie Luthar engineered this episode. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Jess Jiang is Planet Money's acting executive producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is Planet Money from NPR.
A while ago, like everyone else in the world, we sat down to answer one of the scariest questions floating around these is chat GPT going to take our jobs?
Specifically, we were curious about our jobs writing episodes of Planet money, because if you've never played around with chat GPT before, it is this jaw dropping piece of artificial intelligence technology.
You can ask it to write anything.
It has written very good term papers and computer code.
It passed the freaking bar exam.
So of course, anyone who does any kind of writing for a living is very concerned, including us.
And so we decided we needed to see exactly what we're dealing with here.
We started pretty simply.
We typed into chat GPT like, hey, here are some examples of the way Planet Money episodes begin.
Can you write a new one of those for us?
Sure.
Here is a hello and welcome to Planet Money sentence.
Of course, it was just typing this back to us.
We have added the voice because, you know, podcast.
But anyway, yeah, it starts to write.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money.
I'm Stacey Vanek Smith, and today we are taking a deep dive into the world of coffee.
We will explore how.
Okay, okay.